Malthus was a chump
From "The Age of Global Warming," about Malthus's 1798 prediction that the human population would grow exponentially while the food supply would grow only arithmetically:
Plants and animals, including humans, convert carbohydrate to hydrocarbons (fatty acids) to store energy efficiently. In using fossil fuels, mankind unlocked a store of energy used by plants and animal[s] [that had been accumulating for hundreds of millions of years] and, from the time of the Industrial Revolution, started to apply it on an industrial scale.
By the end of the eighteenth century, Britain was becoming the world's first industrialised econom. The Promethean Revolution was underway.
If Bacon was the prophet of man's material liberation through the advance of science and technology, Malthus was its Jeremiah--prophesying that mankind's future was to be trapped in an agrarian past which the Promethean Revolution was already making history.
If ever there was an inflection point in the economic hisotry of mankind, this was it. It was a spectacularly inapposite moment to the be writing a treatise on economic development and population based on the assumption of the static technological endowment of pre-industrial societies when industrialisation was taking mankind out of the Malthusian trap.A little over 200 years later, it turns out that the food supply is capable of growing geometrically, while mankind with access to birth control nearly stops growing at all.
An Interview with Farage
A name likely to become more familiar to Americans, Nigel Farage leads the UK Independence Party.
Adams: You’ve seen the comments by the government that they were going to withdraw the passports of folks in ISIS who are Brits . . .UPDATE: It's a trap!
Farage: . . . That’s not what they said at all. They said they’d like to do something. I said two weeks ago, we don’t want these guys back in Britain. Once again, Cameron just mirrors everything I say because he realizes the public agree with me. He worded it beautifully, he’s brilliant. He said he would like to take away their passports, knowing full well that the European Court of Human Rights won’t let us do it.
More Shorts from the War on Thinking Things Through
The Economist has published and instantly withdrawn a review of a book on slavery. Those who remember our reparations discussion will understand that I am sympathetic to the claims of the book about the facts, which the Economist panned as "advocacy" because "[a]lmost all the blacks in his book are victims, almost all the whites villains." Still, what we just witnessed was not a debate about the accuracy of the facts, nor even the accuracy of the portrayal of the people as victims or villains. A 'debate' of this brevity is a shouting-down of an unwelcome viewpoint, not a discussion of its merits.
Meanwhile in England, a woman is beheaded in her garden:
Meanwhile in England, a woman is beheaded in her garden:
Some residents claimed last night that the suspect was a local man who had converted to Islam last year, but those claims could not be verified. Detectives said they had ruled out terrorism.Detectives are quick with that conclusion, it seems to me. It may be a one-man act of terror, or it may be a crazy with a machete. But wouldn't you like, in the interest of knowing the truth of why the victim was murdered, to take a day or two to investigate before you rule things out?
"A Forecast of When We Will Run Out of Each Metal"
Not really that, of course, as the author makes clear.
Still, it's the kind of exercise that xkcd would have enjoyed putting together -- only without the clever ALT text.
In my opinion, there are two caveats that are always worth considering when looking at something like this.In a sense every economic good is limited, more-or-less scarce. On the other hand, many things can substitute for one another: perhaps organic carbon for the kind of metallic wire we have used to conduct electricity for so long.
1. “Reserves” are an engineering number that are based on economic viability. Technically speaking, there are small concentrations of gold everywhere. It is just not usually viable to mine 0.1 g/t gold. When we will “run out” of each mineral in this chart is based on current reserves and prices. If the gold price doubles, then suddenly it is economic to mine more.
2. This chart is a reminder that something has to give. Either prices are going to have to go up, or new amazing discoveries have to be made to keep prices down. It’s basic economics, and either way it seems that there are many opportunities in the mining industry for investors and speculators on both fronts.
Still, it's the kind of exercise that xkcd would have enjoyed putting together -- only without the clever ALT text.
Hm, Where's That Bible?
Our Secretary of State has apparently decided the right way to persuade Muslim countries is by quoting the Bible. Well, not quoting:
"Confronting climate change is, in the long run, one of the greatest challenges that we face, and you can see this duty or responsibility laid out in Scriptures clearly, beginning in Genesis. And Muslim-majority countries are among the most vulnerable. Our response to this challenge ought to be rooted in a sense of stewardship of Earth, and for me and for many of us here today, that responsibility comes from God,” he continued.So, where was it that God puts humankind in charge of the "climate"? I assume he's thinking of Genesis 1, where we get the general authorities. But they don't include hegemony over the skies, the seas, or anything like the weather.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.In fact, in the Book of Job, the absence of these powers are among the reasons God uses to draw Job's attention to his lack of wisdom and power.
27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food:
30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so.
8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb;If you're old enough to remember 2008, you know who thought he would have the power to bid the oceans cease to rise: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further!"
9 When I made clouds the garment thereof, And thick darkness a swaddling-band for it,
10 And marked out for it my bound, And set bars and doors,
11 And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; And here shall thy proud waves be stayed?
34 Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, That abundance of waters may cover thee?Well, canst thou, John Kerry?
35 Canst thou send forth lightnings, that they may go, And say unto thee, Here we are?
Nothing I'd Hoped To See
The Archbishop of Canterbury has compared the genocide against Christians in ISIS-controlled territory to the Holocaust. Normally the way Holocaust comparisons go is that they are ridiculously overblown, and thus cause tremendous offense. This time, there really is a genocidal slaughter aimed at wiping out a religious minority, whose homes are being marked with a special sign in a kind of reverse-Passover to justify their plunder.
It is, in other words, a perfectly appropriate comparison for describing the conditions of our own day and time.
It is, in other words, a perfectly appropriate comparison for describing the conditions of our own day and time.
Rotherham
The Anchoress writes.
They sent a check to pay for replacements.
UPDATE: Steyn:
What Rotherham puts me in mind of is the behavior of the conqueror. One of the terrible after-effects of invasion and war has been the subjugation of the women, the rape of wives and daughters, the seed of the conqueror, inserted into a culture and a society — yet another tactic meant to subdue and eradicate.The hardest part of this story, for me, was reading about the girl who saved up the clothes she'd been raped in for a very long time at the back of her closet. She finally got the courage to tell her family, who took the clothes and turned them into the police. The police took away the bags, and then came back and said they'd lost them. All of them.
And yet, there has been no old-fashioned “invasion” and no “war” in the southern part of Yorkshire. This conquering was invited, and it was invited throughout Europe, where Rotherham will be discovered to have been replicated. Why wouldn’t it be? Who in Europe would dare to prosecute?
Rotherham will not be the last “conquest”. There are radical Islamists — not “observant” mind you, just radical — living in the West and determinedly unassimilated to it, on every continent.
Earlier today I read about three churches in Columbus graffiti’d with the word “Infidels”.
They sent a check to pay for replacements.
UPDATE: Steyn:
So the individuals who presided over this regime destroyed the lives of 1,400 people in their care, and have paid no price for it. Indeed, some have been promoted, and put in charge of even more children.Have you no rope in England?
"Feminism Is Trying To Update Chivalry"
Now that's a strange thing even to ponder. Let's talk about that.
What is going on with chivalry is that there is a special virtue, a wonderful excellence of human capacity, in those men who could tame horses and ride them to war. They had to be brave to mount the horse. They had to be masters of themselves, because the horse is a prey animal who will spook at anything. They had to command and to lead the horse, but they had to be sensitive to its every least movement. Even a flicker of its skin, unconscious to the horse itself, carries meaning to an attentive rider.
To become the kind of man who could do these extraordinary things was to achieve almost the capstone of virtue. Aristotle gives the capstone virtue as magnanimity, 'being great-soul'd,' a step perhaps even beyond the horseman. Here is the one who is so fully good that he does not care if there is the slightest reward for his goodness. He does right in spite of the worst punishments, caring nothing for the consequences so long as he follows the dictates of honor. The best knight attains this too, but if he is to be a knight at all he must attain the virtue of chivalry. He must be able to sit a horse, however many times he has been thrown, and lead it into the smell of blood.
The reason for a man to do this is that this is what it means to flourish as a man. You can take a horse, twelve hundred pounds, lay your hand on him, and ride. The horse is stronger, bigger than you -- yet also weaker, less in understanding. You can develop a relationship with him such that control follows your least signal. In testing yourself against this mighty thing, you will become great. No one will trouble you. They will stand aside, unless they are one of the great themselves.
Nothing here is archaic. The saddle and the man are there in the morning. They are the same as they have been, now and forever. If he lives this way, this man, he is doing it for reasons of his own that are fully satisfying. If it produces the kind of man you want -- and it is the kind you want, because how could you wish to claim 'equality' for yourself with any lesser man, the kind who steps aside from him with downcast eyes? -- that is a happy accident. He will treat you well, as long as he lives, because he is the right kind of man.
You have a society that produces few enough of these men, but not none. Look to that, if you want my advice.
Chivalry was of course much more than about how men were to treat women. It was a rigorous code for knights that dealt with their relationships with all sorts of different people. We tend to have a negative view of chivalric codes as patriarchal and archaic, for good reason. (They’re patriarchal and archaic.) But the focus on behavior under these codes were how a certain class of men were to treat everyone who was weaker. And that’s a problem that’s not going away.... They’re acknowledging that male and female sexuality actually does need to be respected for its differences and that the average man is stronger than the average female, and as a result of all this, we need men to behave better for our civil society to keep functioning.Not everyone -- I was just telling Tex about the way the shepherd boy who followed Joan of Arc was treated, hamstrung and stitched in an oxhide and drowned. Men who were weaker might be treated gently if they had proven that they could do certain things, but not qua weaker. Just being weak got you nothing.
What is going on with chivalry is that there is a special virtue, a wonderful excellence of human capacity, in those men who could tame horses and ride them to war. They had to be brave to mount the horse. They had to be masters of themselves, because the horse is a prey animal who will spook at anything. They had to command and to lead the horse, but they had to be sensitive to its every least movement. Even a flicker of its skin, unconscious to the horse itself, carries meaning to an attentive rider.
To become the kind of man who could do these extraordinary things was to achieve almost the capstone of virtue. Aristotle gives the capstone virtue as magnanimity, 'being great-soul'd,' a step perhaps even beyond the horseman. Here is the one who is so fully good that he does not care if there is the slightest reward for his goodness. He does right in spite of the worst punishments, caring nothing for the consequences so long as he follows the dictates of honor. The best knight attains this too, but if he is to be a knight at all he must attain the virtue of chivalry. He must be able to sit a horse, however many times he has been thrown, and lead it into the smell of blood.
The reason for a man to do this is that this is what it means to flourish as a man. You can take a horse, twelve hundred pounds, lay your hand on him, and ride. The horse is stronger, bigger than you -- yet also weaker, less in understanding. You can develop a relationship with him such that control follows your least signal. In testing yourself against this mighty thing, you will become great. No one will trouble you. They will stand aside, unless they are one of the great themselves.
'I am with you at present,' said Gandalf, 'but soon I shall not be.... Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.'What is there to fear? Death? Not at all. Death has been faced many times, at least every time you lept in the saddle! So many times that Death is a comforting companion -- the road would not be quite right without him. Dishonor? Not while Death is your companion! Blood washes away dishonor, and he has trained himself to be such as to choose the blood over the dishonor every time.
Nothing here is archaic. The saddle and the man are there in the morning. They are the same as they have been, now and forever. If he lives this way, this man, he is doing it for reasons of his own that are fully satisfying. If it produces the kind of man you want -- and it is the kind you want, because how could you wish to claim 'equality' for yourself with any lesser man, the kind who steps aside from him with downcast eyes? -- that is a happy accident. He will treat you well, as long as he lives, because he is the right kind of man.
You have a society that produces few enough of these men, but not none. Look to that, if you want my advice.
Haka
I'd watch more sports if they were like this. This is way better than a end-zone dance.
But they still lost.
But they still lost.
The Greater Depression
The economist formerly known as Brad DeLong argues that the only way to read the economic indicators is as preparing for a triple-dip. When, he asks, will we stop pretending this is not a depression?
The cynical answer is that "we," meaning the press who act as gatekeepers on the proper terms, will start calling it a Depression about two weeks after there is a Republican who can be held responsible for the condition of the economy. Looks like recovery summers until at least 2017!
The even-more-cynical answer is that neither journalists nor the administration's savants actually understand why the economy doesn't recover. All those "unexpectedly" comments by the press about bad economic news -- now a long-running joke -- are genuine. They honestly don't see that the economy has been so bad for so long just because of what they are doing to try to improve it.
The cynical answer is that "we," meaning the press who act as gatekeepers on the proper terms, will start calling it a Depression about two weeks after there is a Republican who can be held responsible for the condition of the economy. Looks like recovery summers until at least 2017!
The even-more-cynical answer is that neither journalists nor the administration's savants actually understand why the economy doesn't recover. All those "unexpectedly" comments by the press about bad economic news -- now a long-running joke -- are genuine. They honestly don't see that the economy has been so bad for so long just because of what they are doing to try to improve it.
Alaskans Trained as "Stay-Behind" Agents
I ran into this fascinating story today...that documents released under FOIA indicated that the U.S. was once worried about a Soviet takeover of Alaska, and planned to prepare "sleeper" agents to send out information in case this ever happened.
According to the story, the plans included caches of supplies for these agents to use...caches that were never needed. It brings to mind my favorite story about the Alaska Scouts of WWII. A man who became one of their officers had been dropped on a remote island with a shack full of C rations to spy on Japanese planes. He didn't see any, so he maintained radio silence, and the Scouts went out to "rescue" him when his C rations should've run out. According to a taped interview he gave (which I saw at the Anchorage Museum a few years ago), he cheerfully showed them the shack full of C rations, which he'd never even opened. Between his rifle, his fishing gear, and his crab traps, he was quite happy the way it was.
I checked the original file at "Government Attic" -- too long for me to read all the way through -- and ran across a description of a likely recruit:
According to the story, the plans included caches of supplies for these agents to use...caches that were never needed. It brings to mind my favorite story about the Alaska Scouts of WWII. A man who became one of their officers had been dropped on a remote island with a shack full of C rations to spy on Japanese planes. He didn't see any, so he maintained radio silence, and the Scouts went out to "rescue" him when his C rations should've run out. According to a taped interview he gave (which I saw at the Anchorage Museum a few years ago), he cheerfully showed them the shack full of C rations, which he'd never even opened. Between his rifle, his fishing gear, and his crab traps, he was quite happy the way it was.
I checked the original file at "Government Attic" -- too long for me to read all the way through -- and ran across a description of a likely recruit:
An example of a typical person to be one of the principals, as suggested by OSI, is a professional photographer in Anchorage; he has only one arm and it is felt that he would not benefit the eney in any labor battalion; he is an amateur radio operator; he is a professional photographer; he is licensed as a hunting or fishing guide, and well versed in the art of survival; he is a pilot of small aircraft; he is reasonably intelligent, particularly crafty, and possessed of sufficient physical courage as is indicated by his offer to guide a party which was to have hunted Kodiak bear armed only with bow and arrow...It's been a few years since I lived in that happy country, but I can believe they had plenty of recruits like this. My favorite quote from the story, though, is from one of the comments:
Well, back in the 70's the commander of the Alaskan National Guard was asked how long one of his Inuit Scouts could stay out on patrol. The Commander simply answered, "Until he dies of old age."
Kijé
A favorite piece of music. We had this at our wedding, with two flutes and a guitar approximating the bit that begins at 10:00. I particularly like the part beginning at 19:00 as well.
The suite's five movements, which were written to accompany a 1934 Soviet film of the same name, follow the career of a fictional lieutenant in the Russian army. A clerk to the Tsar creates the lieutenant by miscopying two words. The new "officer" catches the attention of the Tsar, who begins to write out orders for him, which no one dares refuse. The lieutenant falls in love, marries, and finally ceases to be a problem when the palace administrators announce his death and burial.
I guess I always thought Prokofiev was earlier than he really was. He was born in 1891. Like many great composers, he was a child prodigy who began producing operas and symphonies as a pre-teen; this was before World War I. After the Revolution, he spent time in the United States and Europe, but began rebuilding ties with the Soviet Union in the early 30s, when he composed Lieutenant Kijé, and resettled in Moscow in 1936. Eventually, of course, he began to experience blowback from the maniacs in charge, but he never got into serious trouble. He died in 1953, at about the same time as Stalin.
The suite's five movements, which were written to accompany a 1934 Soviet film of the same name, follow the career of a fictional lieutenant in the Russian army. A clerk to the Tsar creates the lieutenant by miscopying two words. The new "officer" catches the attention of the Tsar, who begins to write out orders for him, which no one dares refuse. The lieutenant falls in love, marries, and finally ceases to be a problem when the palace administrators announce his death and burial.
I guess I always thought Prokofiev was earlier than he really was. He was born in 1891. Like many great composers, he was a child prodigy who began producing operas and symphonies as a pre-teen; this was before World War I. After the Revolution, he spent time in the United States and Europe, but began rebuilding ties with the Soviet Union in the early 30s, when he composed Lieutenant Kijé, and resettled in Moscow in 1936. Eventually, of course, he began to experience blowback from the maniacs in charge, but he never got into serious trouble. He died in 1953, at about the same time as Stalin.
LOTR's that might have been
Via Ace at Buzzfeed. I don't know that I'd have enjoyed Nicholas Cage as Aragorn, but Daniel Day-Lewis would have been awesome. Sean Connery was offered 15% of box-office receipts to play Gandalf, which would have been $400 million. Paul McCartney wanted to play Frodo in a production by Stanley Kubrick, and that one punches all my buttons.
Good times
David Foster refers us to a Ricochet post asking for suggestions about the happiest times in history. Claire Berlinski proposes the following:
Several commenters proposed adding Victorian Britain to Belle Époque France; Vienna of that period is already included, and the U.S. was a fairly contented place then as well, just before we all got together and tore the world up. One commenter proposed Solomon's reign. Another suggested 14th-century Mali.
- Rome under the Antonines, from roughly 160 AD to 220 AD.
- Baghdad under the Caliphate, from roughly 800 to 1000 AD.
- Western Europe under the peace of Innocent III, from roughly 1200 to 1300.
- France during the Belle Époque, from say 1880 to 1914.
- Vienna under the Emperor Franz Joseph, from 1865 to 1914.
- The United States under Dwight Eisenhower, from 1952 until 1963.
This Is The School I Want For Our Kids
This sounds amazing.
I like reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar about the same time as Livy and Tacitus. Lots of cross-pollination to be had there.
History — Grade 9:The 10th grade list looks good, too. The 9th grade list is focused on the classical world (Golding is a strange bird to fold in there, since his work is clearly Freudian; it's not at all certain to me that he belongs, but otherwise the list is great). The 10th grade list focuses on the European heritage. Eleventh grade literature is wasted on American authors, only two of whom are truly great -- I mean of course Twain and Melville, and they intend to read only Twain -- and while there are a few other American books worth reading (To Kill A Mockingbird, say), the truth is that we don't merit a whole year. They could easily have extended the British literature segment to a year and a half.
Aristotle, Politics.
Herodotus, Histories.
The Holy Bible, American Standard Version
Livy, Stories of Rome.
Plato, The Republic, et al.
Tacitus, Annals.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian Wars.
English — Grade 9:
Cicero, Selected Works.
The Holy Bible, American Standard Version.
Homer, The Iliad.
Homer, The Odyssey.
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar.
Sophocles, Three Theban Plays.
Golding, Lord of the Flies.
I like reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar about the same time as Livy and Tacitus. Lots of cross-pollination to be had there.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)